Fallout 1/2 for blinds

[JaW]

Hi, I translated the email we received from one blind person who wish to play Fallout games (not Fallout 3) and he asked me to post it in here, as this is probably only place where to ask for help and someone will be able to answer or help him.

"Hi. My name is Vojtěch Šmiro and I am blind. My father plays the Fallout game for many years and I started to like it and beeing interested in this game. I would like to ask you if would be possible to sound this game or make scripts for Jaws or WinMonitor. WinMonitor is voice output made in Czech Republic. Blinds can play games only on keyboard. I don't have joystick, but it could help too. The actions I do has to make sound, for example if I am aiming to the enemy, the tone growing stronger and when the tone is strong, I am standing close enough to shoot the enemy. I could use sound mouse, but only in case the objects won't move. Therefore would be better to narrate the navigator or make a program which will load with the game and will use sapi voice picked from the speech program..

Kind Regards
Vojtěch Šmiro

I will re-send all responses to Vojtěch.

 

[M4K]

Im sure there wouldn't be a problem with a text so you could just make some sound script.

But how to show to a blind person a scenery? This is a problem.

Easier for him would be to play with his parents and they could easy tell him what to do.

 

[Prosper]

Wait, so this guy receives all his stimuli through vibrations, echoes, and such?

Can he for example feel the beauty of the placement of an array of pixels by using sonar?

How would it be possible for him to enjoy the visual appeal of my work fully?

I will think about it..

 

[Endocore]

@JaW

I am no kind of expert on this subject and only know a little bit about what kinds of software are available to help the blind or visually impaired, but if I had to guess I think Fallout/Fallout 2 probably isn't highly amenable to working with those sorts of software. Perhaps I'm wrong, though, and someone will be able to help this fellow.

While he's waiting for an answer, you might suggest he look into today's world of Interactive Fiction as a source for some games to play. With screen-reader and speech-to-text technology these kinds of games are very accessible to blind folks, and there's a healthy hobbyist community making a steady stream of new (free) games all the time.

On the post-apocalyptic angle, I played a really good (free) text game a while back called Scavenger that was fun, interesting, and had a pretty high "Fallout feeling" factor; if the fellow is interested in Fallout he would probably enjoy this game as well. The thing to keep in mind about today's Interactive Fiction/text games is that one usually needs the game itself as well as an interpreter program to run the game. The best general-purpose (free) interpreter that plays a wide variety of modern game formats is called Gargoyle.

If the fellow tried this Scavenger game and liked it, there are lots of other good text games available to keep him entertained even if it's ultimately not possible to adapt Fallout/Fallout 2 for a visually-impaired interface.

 

[JaW]

Thanks, Endocore. I will forward your interesting tips to Vojtěch.

I am curious myself if would be possible to allow blind people enjoy this fantastic game.

 

[Bableves]

While I'm no expert on this, maybe sfall can extrapolate which line is used from the msg files. From there it would be easy to write a script which puts that line on the screen, possibly making text-to-speech programs read them.